


You and the Night and the Music

by wordsbymeganmichael



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Blindfolds, F/M, Oral Sex, Plain Old Regular Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Smut, Symphony Music
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-13 16:46:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19255174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsbymeganmichael/pseuds/wordsbymeganmichael
Summary: Emma Swan never learned how to appreciate instrumental music. Then again, that was before she met Killian Jones, second-chair violinist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.





	1. Movement I: Andante -- allegro con fuoco

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by a very intimate love scene in the newest season of Jessica Jones (if you've seen it, you'll know the one. If not, this is a spoiler-free zone.) Then I found a video of Adrian Anantawan, a one-handed symphony violinist, and I knew the route I was going to take. (Watch it here, it's truly incredible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aLFtBwGEJ0) Also brought to you by at least two dozen listenings of Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, "Reformations," which is the piece Killian uses. 
> 
> It was going to be a two-shot, but inspiration struck in the form of the realization that symphonies have four movements, and so should this piece.

“What is it you do again?” she asks, nursing the third drink he’s bought for her — fourth for the night — but since she’s spaced them out enough, they’re not having the strongest effect on her. She may have come here to get drunk, but being approached by a handsome stranger who she has been both talking to and flirting with for the past two hours is enough to try to keep her in a decent state of mind. 

The man in question, however, is having a  _ very  _ strong effect on her, with his dark hair and bright eyes and absolutely brilliant smile. 

“I, uh, didn’t,” he says, his eyes turned down to his drink. Those damned eyes, somehow the brightest blue she has ever seen, that have hypnotized her and taken her aback by smiling at her, smirking at her, even frowning at her once. 

_ Twice.  _

When he turns his gaze back up to where hers is waiting, he is frowning again. “It’s usually not the piece of information I divulge without preempting,” he says, and she rolls her eyes at him. 

“Jesus, Jones, what does that even mean?” she asks, perhaps a bit harsher than she wanted. (She blames the whiskey, of course.) He told her his first name not long after their meeting, the syllables of  _ Killian  _ rolling eloquently off his tongue, but by some sort of unspoken agreement, they have both started calling each other by their last names. When she realizes that the very tips of his pointed ears have started to turn red, she backs off a bit, feeling a little bad for snapping at him. 

“It’s a bit embarrassing,” he admits, “And not everyone really… understands it when I tell them.” 

As warmly as she can, she smiles at him, leaning closer to where he is resting his elbow on the bar, the arm of his prosthetic resting in his lap — a subject that she is very interested in learning about, but very unsure how to breech without crossing any boundaries. “I promise that I won’t make fun of your for it, or… leave, or whatever these really judgemental women do when you divulge your little secret.” 

The beginnings of a smile tick up the corners of his mouth, and she watches intently as his tongue darts out of his mouth and runs along his bottom lip. “Well, my day job is as a copy editor at one of the publishing firms in the city,” he says, his eyes set on something across the bar from them. 

“That seems normal enough,” she comments, smiling over at him even though he is paying no attention to her. “And your… night job?” 

At this, he laughs at loud, finally turning to her with a smile on his face. “And in the evenings, I turn into Batman,” he jokes, leaning towards her, his voice seemingly as low as he can make it. He holds himself together for just a few moments before he starts laughing, Emma following right behind him. 

“Well,” she says after they have regained their countenance. “I do see why some people judge you for that.” 

He shakes his head, letting out a breathy laugh. 

“Joking, of course,” he explains. 

“Of course,” she repeats. “I’ve never even heard of a British Batman, nonetheless one in Boston.” 

“And how do you know I don’t just fake an American accent really well? Or maybe I’m faking my British one just to save face. Maybe Alfred taught my how so I don’t blow my cover while I’m flirting with beautiful women in bars.” 

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” 

“Just wait until I tell you what I really do.” 

“Come on!” she says excitedly, gently hitting his shoulder with her palm. “Just spill already.” 

“Alright, Swan,” he says, taking a deep breath before finishing the end of the glass of rum in front of him. “I just… you promise to keep an open mind?” 

She softens her features. “Of course.” 

“Okay.” He takes another breath, lifting his prosthetic off his lap to set it on the bar in front of him. “I’m a, uh… a professional concert violinist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Second chair.” 

“But you have—” she starts, pressing her lips together to stop herself from continuing. After a brief, awkward moment, she turns to him, trying her hardest to smile. “Sorry,” she mumbles, then turns on her stool to face him head-on. “How did — how long have — what —” she stutters, stopping herself again with a deep breath, relieved to see a small smile growing on his face. “How long have you been playing?” 

He laughs, watching the bartender pour him another two fingers of the Shellback rum that he admitted earlier is one of the reasons he regulars this bar and not one closer to his apartment. “I, uh, picked it up after my mum passed when I was a teenager.”

“Oh,” she whispers, reaching out to press her fingertips against his forearm. “That must have been awful.” 

“I’ve started to see the good over the bad, especially since I lost my hand. Fighting to — fighting to learn it all again, learn how to keep playing without my bow hand, I think it’s what kept my hopes up on those dark days.” 

The realness of his statement pulls a blanket of silence over them, one that she’s not quite sure how to alleviate. Which, of course, helps nothing. 

So she does the first thing she can think of: try to lighten the mood. 

“You know, I never have been the biggest fan of instrumental music.”

His body’s response to her confession is almost humorous, with the way he straightens his back and takes a deep breath, his eyes growing wide — but when he turns to her, his face is covered with the biggest smirk she has seen from him so far. 

“Well then, darling,” he mumbles, leaning close enough for his lips to almost touch the shell of her ear. His voice is completely different than just moments before, when he divulged a deep secret to her — and now, his voice shows no sign that he just bared a small piece of his soul to her. “I would say that is because you have never experienced a symphony the Killian Jones way.” There is a bright sparkle in his eye, an extreme comparison to the midnight shade that his irises have darkened to — one that ignites a small but warm fire deep in her stomach, paired with the weight and heat of his arm now curled around her shoulder, gently pulling her closer to him. 

“What, exactly, is the Killian Jones way?” she asks, a naive smile on her face, though the hand that she rests on his thigh is anything but. 

“It’s not the most appropriate thing to do in public, I’m afraid. A little risque to even discuss for fear of, uh, wandering ears.”

He lightly nods his head down the bar to where the bartender is washing glasses not far from them, his eyes turned down to the sink but a small, almost knowing smirk of his own spread across his face.

“Ah.” She smiles, nodding her head. “So, uh, where do you suggest we go for this… experience?” 

His answer comes quickly, paired with his hand tightening around her shoulder. “If we call an Uber right now, we can get to my apartment in about five minutes.” 

Continuing to nod, she pulls her wallet out of the clutch sitting next to her on the bar, leaving a small pile of cash between their drinks as he flags down the bartender to get their combined tab for the night. 

By the time he has paid their bill, the car is waiting outside, a dark SUV abnormal for the streets of the city, but he leads her out to it anyway, his hand clasped tightly against hers, moving to her back as he helps usher her into the vehicle. 

He slides across to the driver’s side, wanting her to decide how close to him she wants to be, but even though she moves to sit pressed up against him as the driver confirms their destination, he still does not expect her to grab him by the unbuttoned collar of his shirt and pull her lips to his once they are moving, seemingly just as worked up by their short conversation as he is. 

And he  _ especially  _ does not expect her hand to squeeze his thigh, dangerously close to where he is quickly hardening at the thought of getting her back to his apartment. To calm himself, he finds himself whispering the violin part to Vivaldi’s ”Winter” concerto as her lips slide against his, her thumb brushing the very tip of his hardening length, and his hand on her hip begins to slide up her body until he is pressing his palm into her breast, pulling a small laugh from her lips. 

He desperately wants to slide his hand beneath the fabric, to feel the weight and warmth of her in his hand, but he knows just how short the ride from the bar to his apartment is, and just when he expects it to, the car pulls to a stop at the curb outside his building. 

“We’re here, darling,” he groans against her lips, but she does not stop kissing him, even as she slides back across the seat to open the passenger door, pulling him along with her by his shirt. His hand is on her hip as they climb the stairs to his apartment, longing to feel her legs, her stomach, her ass —  _ any  _ of her under his palm, and she presses against him as he unlocks the door, feeling the same need. 

He has barely turned around from locking the apartment door before she can wait no longer and presses her body against his, her hands in his hair as she crashes her lips into his once more. Her fingers are already working the buttons of his dress shirt, quickly moving down his chest until she can push the shirt off his shoulders and onto the floor, her nails raking through the expanse of dark chest hair she finds there. 

He reaches around her to slide the zipper of her maroon dress down her back, pushing the straps off her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. When he realizes that the only thing she is wearing under her dress is a pair of lacy black underwear, he chuckles, pulling her body closer to his so he can walk them backwards. With his hand clasped against the top of her thigh and the arm of his prosthetic wrapped around her back, he coaxes her to wrap her bare legs around him, making it easier to carry her to the bedroom. The apartment is small, and he is across the living room in seconds, only stopping to flick on a light switch before he drops her on the bed. He covers her body with his own for a few moments, swiping his tongue into her mouth once, and then again, before the warmth of him is gone. 

“What are you doing?” she asks, propping her head up on one of her hands as she turns towards him. 

“The whole purpose of this was to experience a symphony, remember?” She realizes that he is standing in front of a record player, his finger running along the spines of a row of records sitting on the dresser. “I have to choose the right one, or else the experience won’t be everything it’s meant to be,” 

She chuckles lightly at him, but does not argue, simply watching him as he sheds his dark jeans and chooses one of the records from the stacks and places it on the waiting player. When he turns around, he is holding a piece of thin black silk in his hand. 

“Do you trust me, Emma?” he whispers over the soft, slow opening of the piece, and all she can do is nod. “Tie this over your eyes, please.” She is useless against him, taking the fabric from between his fingers and doing just as he asks. When she has it tied, she relaxes back on the bed as he softly runs the tips of his fingers over her jaw. 

Ever so slowly, his lips begin to follow his fingers, soft and warm against her cheek, her jaw, and down her neck, just as gentle as the opening of the song. As they travel down between her breasts, she finds herself squaring her shoulders, pushing her chest out towards him, and he must notice, since his breath falls against her skin as laughter. 

“Patience, darling,” he whispers, simply kissing the peaks of her breasts before trailing his lips down her stomach. “You’re absolutely gorgeous, so bloody beautiful.”

With every touch to her skin — of his fingertips, of his lips, of the brush of the dark stubble on his jaw — he sends electrical sparks through her body, magnified by the mystery of where he will go next, since she cannot watch him — and magnified even further by the praises that continue to fall from his lips as he explores her body. 

Finally, his lips reach the elastic waistband of her underwear, barely enough fabric to them to collect the warmth that is gathering between her legs, his fingers lightly swiping the spot that craves him the most, but he begins to move back up immediately, his lips finding their way back to her breasts. As the music swells louder, he swirls his tongue around one of her nipples, finally taking it into his mouth, sucking on it for a moment before she feels his teeth around it, working between the two — to the music, she realizes when her mind comes back down to earth. The thumb of his hand swipes over her other nipple, hardening it between his fingers before he switches his mouth to that one, doing exactly what he did with the first, though not before he whispers, “Absolutely perfect.” 

“Oh,  _ god _ ,” she moans, somehow only for the first time, because she knows for a fact that no man has ever made her feel the way she does right now, and he has only used her breasts so far. 

As the music grows louder once more, he releases her nipple from his mouth and runs his teeth down her ribcage, pressing just hard enough that she can feel him, though he backtracks and then covers the same area with kisses. His lips land at her waistband once more just as the music ends for a moment, and once it has started up again, he has hooked his thumb under the elastic and has started pulling them down her legs. She reaches her hands down to help him, lifting her hips to pull them from under her, and once they are down far enough, she kicks them to the floor. 

His fingers tease her first, gentle against her folds as they slide through her, and she does not realize that she has widened her hips to welcome his lips until they are sliding against her, his hand on her thigh and the other arm draped over her other leg. He softly kisses the inside of her thigh, then the other, his lips traveling back towards her hip as the music slows to a stop. 

“Time for the next movement,” he says, his voice dark, deep, and she does not even have time to think about what that means before he presses his tongue into her core, somehow cold against her even though the rest of him seems to be radiating warmth, and when he plunges deeper into her, she is useless against the raise of her hips towards his mouth. He licks a long stripe across her, his lips landing at the sensitive nerves of her clit, which he sucks between his lips, pulling an unsolicited moan from her lips. He uses his teeth, the hard edges of them the perfect mix of pleasure and pain against her, and when he slowly slides one of his fingers inside her, she bucks against his hand. 

“Do you like this, love?” he asks, laughing against her, though his voice sounds anything but humored. “Are you going to come for me?” 

She responds with a high moan, her breath hitching and then quickening as he uses his mouth — that  _ damned  _ tongue — to pull her closer to completion, adding a second finger to the first as he pumps in and out of her —  _ again  _ in time with the quickening music, that bastard — and it is not long before he finally has the black under the blindfold going white, before she feels the sparks of her orgasm travel across her body, riding his fingers and his mouth to the most intense completion she has ever felt in her life. 

When she has finally regained control of her senses, she feels his lips moving slowly against her, his fingers still but buried inside her, slowly helping her come down off her high. This is also when she hears him whisper “That’s a good girl, take your time,” barely audible over the slow, quiet music, and when he does move away from her, his hand finds the blindfold, untying it from around her eyes. 

After taking a moment to adjust to the light, she finds his gaze, reaching her hand up to press it against his cheek. 

“Now what?” she whispers with a smile, the music still playing behind her words, and he leans down to press his lips against her cheek. “The music isn’t over yet.”

“I would really like to complete this whole experience and pound into you while the third movement swells into the fourth, if that’s okay.” 

She laughs at just how sure he sounds, even though his eyes are blown wide and dark, his already dark scruff coated with her wetness. As a response, she reaches between them and hooks her fingers under the elastic of his boxer briefs, pushing them as far down his hips as she can. 

“I think I can handle that,” she whispers, wrapping her fingers around his hard cock. “Do you have a condom?” 

“They’re in the, uh, drawer in the nightstand,” he manages, the words not coming easy with her hand working him in time with the music, though she releases him so he can remove his boxers the rest of the way as she reaches to find one.

He tries to take it from her fingers, but she quickly tears the packet open, discarding it on the bed beside him as she takes him in her hand again, her eyes set on his. She continues to watch him as she pumps him once, twice, three times, sliding her thumb across his tip to catch the bead of moisture that has collected there — and he is useless against her, snapping his eyes shut. Letting out a breathy laugh, she begins rolling the condom over his length.  

With her hands on his hips, she positions him between her thighs, pulling his lips down to meet hers. She has never tasted her arousal on another man’s tongue, and curls the fingers of one hand in his hair to pull him closer to her, wanting to taste as much of herself as she can from him. When he rests his hips against hers, hard against her warm, wet core, he lets his eyes flutter shut, enjoying the feel of her against him for a moment before lining up at her entrance. She is tight and wet and warm around him, and he sinks into her as much as he can, reveling in the way she envelops him completely — but when she moves her hips against his, her hand splayed out over his back with the other still tugging on his hair, he begins moving inside her, out as far as he can manage before slamming back into her. With every thrust, she releases a small, moaning breath, and with his eyes closed, he focuses on that sound, on the feel of her under him, against his fingers as they find her breast, of her breath on his neck, as he feels his own release gather within him. 

His fingers travel down to where they meet, the pad of his thumb finding her clit as he thrusts hard into her, and it only takes a few swipes of his thumb against her before he feels the flutter of her walls against him, her moans louder and her grip in his hair a little harsher, but he couldn’t care less about that as he knows he is about to follow her over the edge, the thrusting of his hips turning a little erratic as he loses control. 

His arms refuse to hold him up any longer, and he falls onto her, his head on her shoulder and even though he feels himself beginning to shrink inside her, he cannot bring himself to move — especially since she is doing the same, though he does move to remove the condom before they lose the contents of it all over his clean sheets. 

They lay in silence for a few minutes, through the final movement and as the record player lifts the needle at the end of the symphony, silence filling around them. 

“I should go get cleaned up,” she says finally, though she makes no move to do so. “And probably head home. Or at least let my roommates know you haven’t killed me.” 

He chuckles, his voice tired, and when she does move to pull herself up off the bed, he lets her, rolling onto his back so he can watch her as she moves around the room. 

“Stay. Please.” He’s not sure where the words come from, since he’s usually the first one to leave an awkward one night stand, but after they have left his lips, he finds himself wishing to see her again, to hold her through the night and wake her up with his lips against her skin. 

She whips around to face him, her bright green eyes wide with surprise. Like him, she has never been one to stay the night, has always fled at the first opportunity, but when she finds his eyes, sees the sincerity so strong in them that she could lose herself in it, she shrugs. 

“I’m still going to the bathroom. And texting my roommates.” 

He smiles at her, the most brilliant thing she has ever seen, and she can swear that it would light up the room even if there were no other light source. “Of course, love. I’ll be waiting for your return.” 

It only takes her a few moments, and when she returns, he realizes that she is wearing his button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up as far as they will allow, and nothing else. He has found himself a clean pair of boxers, removed the hand appendage from his arm, flipped the Mendelssohn record onto the opposite side, and settled down on top of all the covers. She joins him there, resting her head against his chest, her fingers playing with the soft, dark hair they find there. 

“So, what do you think, love?” he asks, his fingers on his back following the fingering for this piece. “Have your views on instrumental music changed?” 

She smiles up at him, her cheek still pressed against his chest. “Well, if that’s the way I get to experience it from now on, I think I might be more open to hearing some other pieces.” 


	2. Movement II: Allegro vivace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things, uh, speed up. Pun fully intended.

She wakes up with his body curled around hers, his blunted arm underneath his pillow and his hand splayed across her stomach, tucked underneath his dress shirt from the night before. She has never woken up wrapped in the arms of a man and been so at peace. Even the few short relationships she had, she would either make excuses to go back to her apartment instead of spending the night, or wake up in a panic, terrified of giving her heart away only to have it backfire on her again. 

But here, she is not in a panic. Here she is calm, her heart beating at a normal pace, her breath not caught in her throat, choking her. She shuffles back to press her body up against his as much as she can. his arm tightening around her center, and she smiles to herself. 

He is radiating warmth, almost too much for the warm morning air, but when she realizes that his fingers are not still against her, she finds herself too wrapped up in their movements to focus on the warmth of the room around her. 

It takes her a few moments, focused on the movement, to figure out exactly what he must be doing, aided by their conversation (and, uh, activities) the night before: he must be playing something. She has no idea what the technical term for it is, but playing the notes just as he would on his violin. She smiles, laughing softly to herself. This man, with all that devil-may-care attitude that he exhausted the night before, with the rough, callused fingers and the rough, callused past, is sleep-playing the violin against her skin. 

If she hadn't just met the man the night before, she might be able to admit to herself that what she feels for him in this moment is affection; instead, she convinces herself that, for now, she just wants to know him better, to spend more time with him — a desire to be around him, which is more than she can say for a lot of people, with the exception of her very limited group of friends.

A desire to make him feel as perfect and taken care of as she was the night before. 

As this thought floods her head, she presses back into him further, feeling the hardened length of him pressed against her bare ass. And she has an idea. 

Spinning in his arms as gently as she can, hoping not to rouse him, she softly runs her hands down his warm, bare chest, watching his still-sleeping face for a reaction as she moves past his stomach and slips one hand under the elastic of his boxers, her fingers wrapping around his morning hard-on. 

His face changes almost immediately, the look of peace replaced with something more, a look somewhere between amazed and confused. Pumping him slowly, he lets out a soft groan, which pulls a smile to her lips. His hand tightens around her back (with his fingers still moving somehow) and she pushes him gently over so he is laying on his back. 

He still does not seem phased by any of this, still fast asleep. Still playing notes against her back.

Pressing her ear against his chest, she hears the speeding beat of his heart, and pauses what she is doing only to remove him from his boxers, keeping them slung low around his hips. With her hand pumping him again, she kisses a trail down his chest, over his heart and his ribs and his stomach, and if she was not so focused on her actions, she would not have avoided just how intimate of an action that is. Finally, her lips reach her hand, and she moves her grip down his velvet-soft shaft so she can cover his tip with her mouth, sucking gently on the belled tip. 

It does not take much, just a few pumps of her hand and mouth combined, before he is moving under her, thrusting his hips to meet her movements, and she believes him to still be asleep until she feels his fingers on the back of her head, not forcing her but anchoring him to the real world, a soft groan of, "Bloody hell," filling the silent room. 

She smiles around him, not stopping her movements, and he runs his fingers through her hair, the thrusts of his hips speeding up. 

"One minute, I was playing Brahm unaccompanied to audition for first chair, and the next thing I know, I look down, and you're kneeling on the stage in front of me, sucking me off in the middle of my audition." 

At this, she stops, sliding her mouth away from him, though her hand continues it's movements as she looks up his body at him. His hair is a disaster, his arm tucked up under the pillow, but his half-awake eyes are bright and focused on her. 

"Would you like me to stop so you can get back to your dream?" she purrs, her hand pausing for a moment, though it starts again when he quickly shakes his head. 

"Please, God, no," he says, laughing, and she covers him with her mouth again, swiping the moisture from his tip. "This is much better than any bloody dream." 

She laughs again, though it is stopped short when the movement of his hips into her speeds frantically. 

"Emma, love," he groans, and she realizes that this is the first time he has called her by her first name. "Oh, fuck, I'm almost there." She desperately wants to turn to watch him, see the way his features change as he falls apart, but her current angle won't allow for that, so she simply focuses on the way his hips buck uncontrollably at her movements, the way he can't stop himself from tangling his fingers into her hair — and the final growl of a groan that leaves his lips as he shoots his release into her mouth. She does not stop immediately, making sure to take every last drop of him, just as he worked her through the end of her orgasm — twice — the night before. When she finally releases him, she returns his boxers to where they belong, tucking him back in, and climbs back up to rest her head on his chest — though he stops her, pulling her mouth to his in a soft, slow kiss. 

"Good morning," she whispers, her voice low and breathy when they break apart. 

"Good morning indeed," he responds, running his thumb along the apple of her cheek. "I could get used to waking up to that," he says, wishing he could take it back immediately, and when Emma's eyes widen, her breath hitching in her throat, he curses himself for saying something like that after they have known each other for barely twelve hours, especially to someone who he could tell the night before wasn’t ready for that kind of relationship. "Christ, I'm sorry, I — I didn't —" he tries, but she shakes her head, a soft smile taking over her features. 

“Maybe not  _ every  _ morning,” she jokes, and the air in the room somehow returns. “That would be fairly taxing, and would mean that I would have to get up before you all the time, which is not really my favorite idea in the world.”

 

They stay that way for a short while, though Killian is sure that Emma falls asleep for a few minutes in the middle, her hand stilling over his heart instead of drawing the patterns in his chest hair like she did for the rest of the morning. But she is also the one that rouses them from the still silence of the morning when she mumbles, “Fuck, I’m starving.” 

He laughs out loud at the absurdity of it all — bringing her home to worship her to Mendelssohn's Fifth, having her stay the night, waking up with her warm mouth around his cock, and now he's going to make her breakfast.

"Good thing for you I've been told I make the world's best French toast.”

At this, she laughs, rolling off of him to climb off the bed. "Any breakfast that doesn't require me putting pants on is A-okay in my book."

"Lucky for you, then, Swan, I happen to have a preference for pants-less breakfasts.”

"A match made in heaven," she jokes, and does not even give him time to respond — nonetheless overthink it — before she has exited the room.

 

He is finishing the second batch of French toast, a half-eaten plate of bacon all that was left of round one, when he wonders something he absolutely needs an answer to.

"Why the hell didn't you leave after that Batman comment I made last night? If l were you, I would have bolted at the sight of a joke that terrible."

She takes a moment to search his face, her bottom lip drawn up between her teeth, and he wonders for the briefest of moments if he had finally gone and fucked the whole thing up.

And then she smiles, averting her eyes down to the table for a second before turning back to him. "Maybe you had gained enough points in my mind that one absolutely terrible joke didn't quite knock you out completely," she says, her smile small but unwavering.

But even that small smile lights up his whole world.

He is afraid for breakfast to end. He knows that at some point, she is going to need to walk out that door, but that doesn't mean he wants her to. But she is sopping up the rest of her syrup with the last few pieces of French toast left on her plate, and he doesn't know how to ask her to stay. He doesn't know if she needs to leave, what her work schedule is like. She told him the night before that she was a detective, but he never thought to ask if detectives keep regular hours — hell, it didn't matter he until asked her last night to stay and realized that he longed for more than just the night.

And then, just as he 's beginning to think of a way to ask her to spend the day with him, to come back for dinner, to leave her bloody number in his phone so he can find her again, her cellphone rings from where he plugged it in on the counter before he started making breakfast, and he fears he may be too late.

"Yeah, Rubes'" she answers, her bright eyes pleading for an apology as she talks to whoever is on the other line. "Shit, yeah, okay. But listen, I'm gonna text you an address, I need you to pick me up here. With a change of clothes." Almost comically, he hears the voice over the phone start screaming (excitedly, he hopes) and Emma rolls her eyes. "Listen, listen... Ruby, please, God, shut up!" Just like that, the voice stops, and she smiles at him across the counter. "If you promise to keep your mouth shut and not tell Mary Margaret and Elsa, I will tell you part of what happened, and the rest when I feel like it, alright?" After a moment, Emma nods. "Yeah, I'll see you in twenty."

She ends the call with a press of her finger, setting her phone back down on the counter, her eyes set on the same place before she looks up at him. 

“I’m really sorry,” she says softly, but even as she continues, he shakes his head. “This isn’t — I was really hoping that I wouldn’t have to leave so soon, if I’m being honest, but, you know, duty calls and all that.” 

He crosses the kitchen to stand in front of her, close enough to reach out and take her in his arms, but he doesn’t do that. Instead, he just smiles at her. “You’re out there being a hero every day, even if that includes Saturday mornings. No need to apologize, unless you’re going to run out of here without promising a rain date for the rest of the day.” 

The worry melts off her face, turning into a smile. “I would really like that.” 

He waits for a moment, only slightly terrified to make the move he is thinking about, but he does it anyway. “And I would really like to kiss you again, if you’ll grant me that opportunity.” 

She fills the space between them slowly, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as he sets his hand on her waist. “I would really like that, as well,” she whispers, closing her lips against his. 

This kiss is unlike any of the others they have shared: slow, tender, and dare he even think meaningful? In this moment, he decides that if he could spend the rest of his life doing nothing but kissing Emma Swan, he would be content. 

 

They see each other again. Brunch the next morning. 

Dinner the night after. 

They see a show at the theatre, spend a day on his boat, and even go to the aquarium. 

Two months from their first night together, he makes her dinner, serves her wine, and plays her a piece that he has been practicing. It’s one of the few instrumental pieces she can place because of its popularity: Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” When he plays her the whole thing, beginning to end, smiling at her when he is not looking at the music or closing his eyes, she can swear that she has never seen a more beautiful sight.

They both have interesting schedules, between her time at the precinct and out in the field, and his day job, rehearsals, and performances, but even if all they can do one day is hope they can meet for coffee for a few minutes in the morning, they try their best. 

That’s what matters. 

Days become weeks. Weeks turn into months, and before she knows it, she is inviting him to meet her friends that weekend at the bar. Which is not something she does. 

Hell, relationships aren’t really something she does, but for some reason, there is something about this strange, brilliant, gorgeous, loving British man that she never seems to tire of, and she has found herself smiling more over the past three months than the thirty-one years before. 

Okay, that might be a bit of a stretch. But she likes him. Really,  _ really  _ likes him. 

And her friends like him, too, which is a miracle in itself. The night he meets them for the first time, she really does smile the whole time. 

Ruby even says something about it. Of course, so do Elsa and Mary Margaret, but she expects it from them. She doesn’t expect it from her partner. 

And Killian seems happy, too. Realizing that matters more to her than her own happiness terrifies her, because it means that her  _ liking  _ him is starting to turn to something more. 

And she’s a little more terrified by the fact that she  _ really doesn’t care —  _  that perhaps she is ready to give her heart away again, as long as it is to this man . 

 

She meets his friends, too. A small, boisterous bunch, sure, but they really care about their friend. Robin he’s known the longest, a friend since childhood that decided to move to Boston after the death of his first wife five years ago, and who is now in the beginnings of a relationship with the first woman since her. And with him came Will, the youngest of the bunch, who drinks too much whiskey which makes him a little too loud (though somehow better at darts), but who adores the woman who had just become his wife. And Jeff, who they lovingly call “the American,” Will’s best friend, who works at the same publishing house Killian does, along with Ariel, who is technically Jeff’s assistant, though she quickly joined his friend group outside of work and fits in like a charm. 

But the first time she meets his brother is not until his thirty-fifth birthday party two months after he meets her friends for the first time. 

Killian holds the party at his apartment, the perfect size for all of his friends and their ladies (plus Ariel’s husband, Eric), as well as Emma and her friends. 

She is standing on his balcony, already on her second beer of the night, between Ruby and Will’s wife Belle, when she feels someone standing behind her. When she turns to face him, she recognizes the older Jones brother from pictures of him scattered through the apartment, his hair a bit lighter than Killian’s but his eyes exactly the same, though because he towers over her and could  _ absolutely  _ tear her apart with those arms, she momentarily forgets his name. 

“So you’re the girl,” he says, narrowing his eyes in the same expression that covers Killian’s face when he plays a wrong note or can’t figure out an answer to the crossword puzzle, though it’s much more intimidating from this man than it could ever be from Killian.

Thankfully, Belle comes to help her. “Really, Liam?” she asks, her arms crossed in the same way his are, and though she is nowhere near as intimidating as he is, he seems to back down nonetheless. 

Emma smiles warmly at him, remembering that she is the kind of woman that carries a gun with her (one that is locked up in the small safe she bought to keep under Killian’s bed for nights she spends here) and does _not_ have to be intimidated by her boyfriend’s older brother. “Yes, I’m Emma,” she says, holding her hand out to shake his, and though he stares at it for a moment, he decides to shake it anyway, backing down a bit more. “It’s so good to finally meet you. Your brother talks about you all the time.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t say that much,” Killian says, stepping around Liam and out on to the balcony. “There are quite a lot of moments we share that I thankfully don’t have my older brother on my mind.” He winks at her, which makes her stomach flutter the same way it does every time he winks at her. 

God, she’s got it bad. 

“Now, if you’ll be so kind, Liam, I would appreciate if you dropped the weird intimidating persona and leave my lovely girlfriend alone.” 

Liam rolls his eyes, but at the same time, he also relaxes his shoulders and drops his arms down to his sides. Sure, he still towers over her and could  _ absolutely  _ tear her apart with his arms, but now she can at least breathe. 

“Sorry,” he says, a smile that looks so much like Killian’s covering his face as he wraps one of his large arms around his brother. 

Seriously. They’re huge. Of course, he is in the Navy, has to be in prime shape for his position, but those  _ arms.  _

( _ It’s not weird to be this hyper-focused on them,  _ she convinces herself.  _ They’re so large they could have their own ZIP code. _ )

“He just knows I need to look out for him, is all. Right, little brother?” 

Killian rolls his eyes, trying to squirm out of his grasp, but he’s useless against Liam’s strength. “Younger brother,” he corrects, though Emma would never admit to joking with herself about Killian also being much smaller than Liam. “And yes, of course I know you’re just looking out for me, but that doesn’t mean you have to come in here with your bravado and scare away every woman I’ve ever looked at.” 

“Did’ja hear that, Emma?” Will asks, pushing his way out onto the balcony, which seems to have more people on it than it has room for, though he presses up so closely against his wife that it almost makes up for it. “Killian just admitted to looking at other women.” 

Killian opens his mouth to protest, but Belle jams her elbow into Will’s ribs, effectively silencing him as she smiles at Emma. “I for one am thankful that Killian finally found someone that makes him happy,” she says, and it is almost enough to bring tears to Emma’s eyes. 

Almost. 

“He deserves to be happy,” Liam comments, and even with the burning blush rising to her cheeks, Emma can’t bring herself to tear her eyes from Killian’s. 

“Emma deserves to be happy, too,” Killian says, and Emma does not even know how to respond. 

“Well, Killian, you make her happy,” Ruby says for her, and she just nods. 

The balcony is silent for a moment, and Emma has never been as thankful for a smart-ass quip from Will as she is when he finally breaks the silence with, “I need more liquor in me before I can put up with all this happy talk.” 

This takes enough of the awkwardness out of the air that the small crowd that has collected on the porch starts to head back in the house, leaving Emma and Killian out there alone, his arm wrapped around her waist as they both look out over the street. 

“Sorry about my brother,” he says after a moment. “Sometimes he can be a right ass, but it’s only because he’s been looking after me since we were just boys.”

“How much older than you is he again?” 

“Five years.” 

She nods. “So he was… he was 19 when your mother died?” She’s not sure what brings her to ask, hoping that she’s remembering correctly, and she immediately regrets bringing it up at his own birthday party. 

But he doesn't seem phased by it. “Thankfully, yes. If he wasn’t they would have had to pull our father out of the nearest bar to raise us, and that was the last thing Liam wanted.” 

“But he’s been protecting you since you were fourteen. His overbearingness makes sense. Hell, David has only been protecting me for the last ten years and he gets like that sometimes.”

He turns her in his arms, pressing his hand against her cheek and sliding his thumb across her bottom lip. “Some things are just worth protecting.” 

His words are still rattling around in her head an hour later when Belle pulls a birthday cake from God-knows-where, watching as he blows out the thirty-five candles she insists all have to be on the cake. And as the cake is being distributed, hiding in the corner of the kitchen hoping no one asks her for help — if there’s one thing she is  _ not _ , it’s a hostess. She blames the lack-of-a-mother, foster-care situation, but Mary Margaret always insists that there is still time for her to learn. 

And she is still focused on those same words as Robin comes up next to her, leaning against the counter in the same way. 

“That man is hiding something,” he says, both of them staring across the kitchen to where he is sitting at the head of the table in the dining room. 

“What?” 

“He has a secret or something. A plan of some sort.” 

“How do you know this?” 

“I’ve known him most of my life, Emma. I can tell when he’s trying to keep something from me. Except now, it’s exponential, because he’s trying to keep it from everyone.” 

“That’s insane.” 

“Is it, though?” 

As he walks back through the doorway, he leaves her focused on this thought, too, the two phrases swirling around her head:  _ Some things are just worth protecting… That man is hiding something…  _

 

A little later, he pushes into the center of the crowd, raising his cup above his head as he tries to get everyone’s attention. “Hey! Hey, everyone, I have an — I have something I want to say.” 

Almost immediately, Emma finds Robin’s gaze across the room, and he shrugs, though he still looks rather suspicious of his slip of the tongue. 

“I just…” he starts, looking around the room, but when he finds her eyes in the crowd, he smiles. “I really want to thank each of you for being here tonight, and for being a part of my life. I’m incredibly thankful for each of you, and my life would not be the same if I didn’t have all of you.” 

At this, Emma knows that Robin is right. That’s not what he was going to say, not the announcement he was going to make, though it does not worry Emma as much as she can tell it is worrying Robin. 

“I have something for each of you, though,” he continues. “Emma, darling, could you get the envelope from the drawer of the table next to the bed?” 

She does as he asks, listening as she moves through the apartment. “The newest symphony opens downtown in a month, and I’ve gotten you all tickets for it. You’re all so understanding when it comes to this hobby of mine that I’ve been able to turn into a career, and I’m hoping that you’ll all be able to come out and see me play with all of you together.” 

He looks so genuinely happy as he hands out the stack of tickets that it almost makes Emma feel bad to be suspicious that he is hiding something. 

This time, when she looks across the room at Robin, he nods before staring down at the ticket in his hand. 

Shit, this is going to bother her. 


	3. Movement III: Andante

It does bother her. Especially as he continues to act as if everything is normal for the next week: splitting time between her and work, staying at his apartment when he has to be at rehearsal in the morning and hers when he does not. She does notice that he is spending considerably less time at the publishing house and more time at rehearsal, but he says that’s normal as they’re approaching the opening of the new symphony. 

The week after his birthday party, he insists on taking her to her favorite seafood restaurant down by the pier — not for the first time in their six months together, but it’s one of the pricier restaurants in the city, and they agreed to only come here for special occasions. 

When they walk up to the hostess, she can feel his hand shaking against her back, finally settling there after spending the whole walk trying to figure out what to do with it. His laughter is filled with nervousness, ordering rum on the rocks as she decides on one of the fruity drinks from their specials menu. 

She tries to make small talk, try to get him to talk about whatever he’s been ignoring. 

“How are your rehearsals going?” 

She doesn’t miss the way his eyes widen at her question, setting down his glass of rum before he even takes a sip from it. 

“I think this is my favorite collection of songs,” he says, taking just a moment too long to think of this response. “But you guys, you’re — I hope you’re really going to enjoy it.” 

“Ruby wasn’t sure how to feel about it at first, honestly,” she jokes, trying to convince herself that she has nothing to worry about.

“No surprise there from that woman,” he says with a smile. 

“But also, I was wondering what made you decide to get us all tickets? Isn’t opening night the first one to sell out. And Regina says they’re some of the best seats in the house, so they couldn’t have come cheap.”

This time, when he picks up his glass of rum, he takes a drink from it, pausing the conversation for a moment. “They asked me if I wanted tickets to give to anyone before they went on sale, and when I asked how many I could have, the conductor just shrugged.” He leans towards the table, eyebrows high on his face when he whispers, “I think she might have a bit of a crush on me, to be honest.”

“I certainly don’t blame her.” 

He reaches across the table, covering her hand with his own. 

“Emma,” he whispers, a soft smile covering his face, one that she returns. 

He opens his mouth to say more, just as the waitress approaches their table to take their order. Her name is Tink, and, aided by her short stature and short blonde hair, she reminds Emma of Tinkerbell. She wonders if the name is a coincidence or not.

“Are the two of you ready to place your order?” she asks, a large smile spread across her face, and Emma turns her attention down to the menu in a rush, forgetting that she had already decided what she was getting. 

Killian orders the seafood scampi and Emma gets the rainbow trout, Tink asking them a few questions about salads and bread and sides before she leaves their table. 

When Emma turns back to Killian, the smile has returned to his face, and when he reaches back across the table to take her hand again, she returns his smile again. But her patience has run out. 

"Killian, what's going on?" 

"What do you mean, love?" 

_ Oh, he's good.  _

"We decided to only come here for special occasions, specifically because of the $35 shrimp scampi, but you insisted that we had to come here tonight. You're not as sly as you think, Killian. I can tell there's something on your mind." 

He drops his eyes to the table, pursing his lips. 

"It's not — I just…" 

When he stops trying to speak, Emma leans as far across the table as she can without knocking over glasses, reaching out with her free hand to press it against his cheek. "Killian," she whispers, just loud enough for him to hear her over the din of the restaurant, and this finally makes his pull his eyes up to meet hers. "You can tell me. What's going on?" 

He pinches his lips into a thin line, then slowly runs his lip along the bottom one, his eyes never leaving hers. She's searching them for an answer, hoping that pushing him hasn't closed him back off again. 

And then he smiles. 

"I love you, Emma," he says, as if it's the easiest thing he has said his whole life. It just may have been, if the relieved look on his face means anything. 

Her breath tightens in her chest. She's not even sure if she tries to take a breath, or if her body has just decided that she doesn't need to breathe anymore. She would really appreciate if she could breathe again. It's kind of important. 

"I don't expect anything more from you," he says, and she still can't breathe. "I don't — I don't need you to say it back, or anything like that. That's not what I want. I just need you to know." 

Her eyes are dry. Not only can't she breathe, but she can't even blink. At least her heart is pounding heavily enough in her chest that she can feel  _ that  _ still works. 

She knew this was going to happen. It's enough to terrify her, was more than enough to terrify her when Neal said them the night before he left her for good. Killian knows that, knows everything about her, but that doesn't stop him from sitting here, across the table from her, telling her that he loves her. She  _ knows  _ that's not what this is, that Killian and Neal are nothing alike, but it's still a shock to her nervous system. 

"But that’s, uh, not it," he says after giving her a few moments, and  _ fuck  _ she's still not breathing, but she turns her attention back to him and off of everything that's happening — or, not happening — to her body, and his eyes are so blue and so real and so, so sincere that she begins to realize just how absurd she may be, not believing that he really means everything. "I think you should move in with me," he says, the words tumbling quickly out of his mouth, but finally she is able to take a breath and the world begins to shift back into place around them. "Or, l mean, if you want — if you need to stay at your apartment to be sold on the deal, then I would certainly be willing to move across town, even though my apartment is right by the concert hall and not any further from the precinct than yours is, but I would — I would do that for you, Emma. I would do anything for you."

"Killian, wait," she says finally, wishing she could have worked up the nerve to stop him at least a few dozen words ago. As she watches the smile melt completely off his face in just a quick moment, though, she regrets stopping him in the first place, regrets even the moment’s worth of time that he currently believes she doesn't want all that.

So that's exactly what she tells him.

"Please don't take this the wrong way," she starts, making sure to squeeze his hand still wrapped around hers. "I really, really care about you, somehow more than I've ever cared for anyone in my life.” She smiles at him, doing all she can to assure him that the last thing she wants to do here is run, what she is sure he was afraid of when she stopped him. "I've told you all the shitty things that have happened to me, and somehow you've still decided to stay. I might not have all the right words to say yet, because everything about you is still so new to me, as I've somehow known that it would be since that very first night.” Now, finally, he returns her smile. "But you and I both have pasts full of pain and hurt and letdown, and I want to make sure that everything we do, that every step we take, is a step in the right direction." When she pauses for a moment, quickly wetting her lips, both unsure of what else to say and whether she wants him to respond, she decides that the silence sitting between them is the worst option. "Please," she whispers, her eyes searching his face for some sort of response, "Just be patient with me."

The silence only lasts for another moment, but she feels like it is the longest moment of her life. And then, his face softens, no longer staring at her as if she has burned down his whole world, and everything that did not shift back into place when she could breathe again fixes itself now. 

"Okay."

  
———**———

 

Emma thought for sure that was the secret he's been hiding, convinced herself that he was just really nervous about asking her to move in with him, about telling her that he — about saying what he did at the restaurant. But two nights later, when they are at the bar with his friends, Robin tries to convince her otherwise.

"No, no, Emma, I'm telling you, that's not it." They are sitting at a small table in the corner, watching us Belle and Regina absolutely kick his and Will's asses at darts. "I've seen Killian nervous in relationships when he was with—” He stops for a moment, looking at her across the top of his glass. "— before. And this isn't that. I mean, don't think I'm not happy my oldest friend has found someone that makes him happy, but I really think he's hiding more than just the next step of your relationship." 

That certainly doesn’t make Emma any less worried about it all, still trying to figure out what Killian, the most open and honest person she has ever met, could possibly have to hide from all of them. 

But the weight of that worry is nothing compared to the surprise that comes to her the very next day: 

“He did  _ what? _ ” Elsa asks at the exact moment Ruby yells, “Why the hell are we just learning about this now?”, rounded out perfectly with Mary Margaret’s scream in the background. 

“He — he asked me to move in with him,” she says again, her cheeks reddening, deciding to keep the other half of the revelation to herself. 

“What did you say?” Elsa, of course, is the most levelheaded of them as the other two quickly lose their minds (though she’s fairly sure Ruby pregamed their brunch with something much stronger than mimosas.) 

“I told him…” she starts, really thinking about she did tell him for the first time. “That I didn’t want to rush things, that I needed to make sure that we were both sure of things before we took the next step, just because we’ve been so hurt in the past.” 

Elsa nods, but when Mary Margaret steps back into the room from the kitchen, she wears a frown to match Ruby’s. 

“But you do want this, though, don’t you?” Ruby asks, and Emma pulls her bottom lip up between her teeth. 

“Oh my god!” Mary Margaret cries, quickly crossing the room to sit next to her on the couch again. 

“What?” Emma asks. 

“You do!” she responds, hitting Emma’s shoulder with her hand. “You want this! You may not have been sure when he asked you, but you’re sure now!” 

Another squeal fills the room, and Emma laughs silently to herself. 

Because Mary Margaret is right. She wasn’t sure that night, didn’t want to be too sure of anything in the moment, but now that she has had some time to think about it — and to talk it out with the ladies that know her better than she knows herself — she realizes that they’re right. 

She does want to move in with him. And —  _ holy shit _ — she’s pretty sure she also loves him. 

  
———**———

 

The next few days pass quickly, excitement for Killian’s performance at the concert hall buzzing through all of them (even Ruby, though probably aided by a little wine). They meet around the corner from the entrance, out of the way of most of the traffic and able to then come in as a group and figure out seating instead of needing to shuffle every time someone else shows up. 

(Of course it was Regina’s plan.)

They take their seats, Emma between Mary Margaret and Ruby, and as the house lights go down and the curtain begins to rise, Emma leans over towards Mary Margaret and whispers, “I’ve decided to move in with him, by the way. I was gonna tell him tonight.” 

But there is no response from her friend, whose eyes are locked on the stage. 

Locked on the spotlights. 

Because, front and center, lit up by not one spotlight, but _three_ , leading the tuning of the orchestra, is Killian. 

_ First chair.  _

Killian is first chair. 

_ Holy shit.  _

She leans forward to look down the row, to see who else in their group is stunned, but the answer is all of them. 

And when Robin leans forward the same way she is, she can see the knowing look on his face before they bring down the rest of the lights so the conductor can make her entrance. 

Because this is it. This is Killian’s secret. Not wanting to move in with her, not being ready to say that he’s in love with her. Not only did he hide even auditioning for first chair, but he hid  _ getting  _ it, just so he could surprise them all with it. 

 

They play beautifully through the first piece, but it is not until the second movement starts that Emma realizes why it seems so familiar: it is the Mendelssohn symphony from their first night together, which she quickly learned is Killian’s favorite piece to make love to. 

Killian’s favorite piece to put on in the background while he does the dishes or goes for a run or folds the laundry, the piece that he hums almost as much as Vivaldi, the piece that has quickly become her favorite, too. 

When she closes her eyes, she sees him perched over her, memories of the things he has done to her, of his lips on her skin, of all the times he has brought her to completion with his tongue, his fingers, his cock — but when she feels her cheeks begin to burn, she knows she has to bring her mind back to the concert hall. 

So, she watches him play instead. He's brilliant, the look on his face unlike any other expression she has seen from him, even when he practices in front of her. (And even that one time that she went down on him while he was playing to see if he could keep playing like he did in his dream that very first morning — and while he tried, it didn't take long before he couldn’t get through anything faster than quarter notes before he gave up and gave in to her.) 

As the memory of that specific afternoon rolls through her head, Mary Margaret leans over and whispers, “He really is incredible,” but she is so focused on his movements that she does not respond. 

The second movement becomes the third, and then the fourth. 

When the piece is over and the applause begins, Robin leans forward to find Liam in their row. “Did you know he got first chair?” he asks, but Killian’s brother just shakes his head. 

They both turn to Emma. “Did you know?” Liam asks, almost angrily, and Emma doesn’t fail to notice Elsa’s hand placed on his arm, though she hasn’t yet moved to tell anyone other than Emma that she has a crush on the older Jones brother. 

Emma shakes her head, as well. “I didn’t even know he was auditioning.” 

As the applause dies down, the conductor steps off her platform to pull a microphone out of its stand behind her. Killian had described her to Emma before, had even pulled up her picture from the Symphony’s website, but the tall black woman on stage seems to emit an even bigger presence than Killian tried to describe. She is dressed in a sparkling emerald green gown, just long enough to show off her silver stilettos — both a sharp contrast to the black suits with crisp white shirts worn by the rest of the performers. 

“The piece you’ve just heard was Mendelssohn’s Fifth Symphony in D Major, also called ‘Reformation.’ It was composed between 1829 and 1830, and Mendelssohn hoped to have it scored and toured fast enough to be ready for performance at the 300th anniversary of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession in Berlin, a celebration of the day the new Lutheran church presented the doctrine on which it was founded. However, Mendelssohn fell ill while working on the piece, and it was not completed in time to be part of the celebration. It is certainly not the most famous of Mendelssohn’s pieces, but when it was brought to me as I was planning the performance for this evening, I knew it would be the perfect way to begin this new tour. My name is Ursula Boone, and I would personally like to thank each of you for being out here with us this evening, and I welcome you to the opening night of this fall’s tour for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.” 

She smiles out to the audience, and applause begins again, though it fizzles out quickly.

“Before we continue, I would like to introduce all of you to someone who has quickly become important to this group, especially since it is his first night in the highly esteemed position of first chair violin.” She motions for him to stand, and though he shakes his head at first, his smile growing as his cheeks grow redder than the hot lights on the stage already make them, he does as she asks. Emma even hears some of the audience gasp when they realize that he only has one hand.

“During my fifteen years as a conductor, and quite a few more before that as a performer, I have never met anyone who deserves this opportunity as much as Killian Jones does. When our previous first chair left a few months ago, I was not looking forward to having to go through auditions to replace her. To spice things up a little, my assistant conductor and I decided to allow each person auditioning to choose their own solo piece, as well as play through a piece of my choosing, since the auditions were blind and we needed some way to tell them all apart. I never knew who was playing for me, but as soon as I heard this man in front of you play perfectly through part of this next piece we have prepared for you, he stole my heart away.” 

At this, Emma turns her attention to him, and he is blushing so much he looks like he just wants to disappear, ducking his head to hide the embarrassment of the spotlight from most of the audience.

“However, the conductor tends to get close to whoever sits in the first chair position, and if I have learned anything over these past few weeks as we prepared for this performance, it is that I was too late, and that Killian had already given his heart to a wonderful woman that the man never stops talking about, who I’ve been told is in the audience tonight.” 

Ruby begins to stand up next to her, no doubt to make sure that she is just as embarrassed as Killian is, but both Emma and Elsa hold her down in her seat to stop her. Mary Margaret practically squeals on the other side, and she is glad to hear that comments are not just coming from her row, but from all over the audience. 

Everything is silenced, however, as Killian approaches Ursula, trading her his violin for the microphone. 

They can all tell that he is incredibly nervous, but he smiles into the spotlight nonetheless before starting. "See, I'm maybe not the best friend, or the best boyfriend, because the decision to audition for the first chair position is definitely one that you should share with the people around you. But, my lovely Swan, the past six months have been the brightest of my life, and whether you knew it or not, you have pushed me to defy limits I didn't even know I set for myself, like reaching for this first chair position. You inspire me every day to be a better person, a better friend, a better boyfriend, and a better musician. You've reminded me of Vivaldi's S _ummer_ since I first saw you sitting across that bar, and now I get to play it for you. So, wherever you are out there, Swan, I dedicate this piece, this performance, and as much of my life as you'll allow, to you." The audience goes wild. Ursula does not wait for it to stop before she begins the first notes of the piece, but Emma already has tears rolling down her face.

 

“Come on,” Ruby says, pulling at Emma’s arm as they walk as a group out of the auditorium and into to lobby. “You’re really not going to make him celebrate tonight?” 

Not for the first time, Emma shakes her head, and Liam does the same. “Have you ever done something like that?” Liam asks, posing the question not just to Ruby, but the rest of the group. 

Somehow, he once again causes them all to have no response. 

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. It’s exhausting. The first time Killian had a solo in the high school orchestra, he almost passed out. It’s no small feat to play for three hours on a hot stage with every ear in the room waiting for you to make a mistake.” 

Silence. 

One day, Emma is going to ask him how he does it. She’s assuming it has something to do with his somewhat scary demeanor. (And, of course, the battleships that are his arms.)

“But you two promise you’ll make him come out one night soon and celebrate?” Will asks. 

They’ve reached the lobby, where Emma and Liam are going to leave the rest of them so they can go back and wait for Killian to be done, so they pause instead of heading towards the doors. 

“Of course,” Emma says, though it’s not necessarily the truth. All she cares about in the moment is celebrating with him. Alone. Possibly listening to that Vivaldi piece that he has somehow never played for her before. 

This seems to be good enough to get Will and Ruby to stand down, pulled out the door by the rest of their friends while she and Liam head towards the back, just as she assumes Liam has done countless times before. Though never after a concert where his brother played first chair (at least, since Killian was in college.) 

They wait outside his rehearsal room for a few minutes, Liam’s silence enough to cause her to do the same, but when Killian finally comes around the corner, pulling at the collar of his shirt while the man behind him carries his violin, both Emma and Liam break out into large smiles. 

While Liam wraps his arms around his brother, Emma reaches to take the violin from the man behind him, smiling warmly at him before he walks away. 

“Mum would be so proud of you, Killy,” Liam says, and Emma can swear that she heard his voice falter a little bit. “Seeing you out on stage like that, playing your heart out. I know I questioned your decisions a lot after the accident, but after seeing you tonight, I take all of those back, little brother.” 

Killian is so moved by this, reaching up to swipe at a tear that has started to fall down his cheek, that he doesn’t even correct Liam’s  _ little brother  _ remark. 

“Now,” he says, taking a step away from Killian so Emma can hug him, as well. “My only job was to make sure this lovely lady got back here without being trampled by all your fangirls, so my work here is done.” 

With another small smile directed at each of them, he turns on his heel, leaving them in the hallway. 

“I’d like to take off a few of these layers and drink a few dozen bottles of water before we take off for the night, if that’s alright with you, my Swan?” he asks, his head tilted down as he stares up at her through his eyelashes, fishing in the pocket of his suit coat for the key to his rehearsal room. 

_ His  _ rehearsal room. 

She already wanted to take him home and tell him all the things she hasn’t allowed herself to since their dinner by the docks, say with her body what she still is not able to say with her words — but a private rehearsal room, one that only he has the key to in a concert hall that is quickly emptying at the end of a big, busy night, now almost seems like the better alternative, especially once he gets the door open and flicks on the light, revealing the contents of the room to her. There is a small piano in the corner, a small rehearsal space around it with two chairs and a music stand, with a counter running the length of the wall closest to them, a mirror hung above it the whole way, and a large maroon couch against the far wall. 

Everything she needs for what she wants to give him.  

She watches, senses heightened, anticipating her moves, as he pulls a water bottle out of the mini-fridge that sits under the counter before plopping down on the couch, stretching his shoulders against the top of it. Placing the bottle between his knees, he twists the lid off with his hand, and it is not until he sets the cap on the couch next to him that Emma realizes he might need her help removing the bow attachment from the end of his prosthetic, so she crosses the room to sit beside him. 

After he downs half of the bottle, Emma helps him put the lid back on it and sets it at the ground between his feet. 

"Let me help you," she says, her voice just as soft as her smile, and she reaches down to help him twist off the bow attachment, leaving behind just the metal piece just below his shoulder. 

When he finally attempts to smile at her, she can tell that he is embarrassed by this for some reason, even though this is far from the first time she has helped him with the part of his arm that he is missing. But after she slides the shoulders of his jacket away from his body, pushing it away from him, he fills the space between them and crashes his lips into hers, not even waiting for her to respond before he nips her bottom lip, pressing his tongue into her mouth. 

Nothing about their kiss is slow, and it only takes a few moments for Emma to finish unbuttoning his white dress shirt so she can push it from his shoulders as he turns them on the couch, covering her body with his. 

"I am so damn proud of you," she breathes, his lips finding all the bare skin they can: her cheeks, her neck, her shoulders, the swell of her breasts not covered by the tight top of her gown. 

"You're a bloody marvel, you are," he mumbles, his lips never once leaving her skin. "Help me get this bloody dress off you so I can show you properly." 

"I thought you would never ask." She smiles, pulling his mouth back to hers. "But I do hate to admit, you're going to have to get off of me for it to work." 

"That is a shame," he says, but pulls away after kissing her once more. "But it's a sacrifice I am willing to make." 

Laughing at his absurdity, Emma climbs back off the couch, Killian's hand quickly covering her waist, not wanting to completely lose his contact with her. It's the first good look he gets at the dress, a crisp white on one side and black on the other, a small trail of silver gems running between where the two colors meet. It's beautiful, the tightness of it accentuating her every curve so we'll that Killian almost doesn't want to take it off. 

Almost. 

She turns to the side, allowing Killian a moment to appreciate how the material clings tightly to her ass, before she gathers all her hair in one hand and raises it over her head, revealing a slim white zipper down the side of the fabric. When he doesn't move to help after a moment, Emma waves her hand in front of his face as a joke, and he smiles warmly up at her. 

"I need your help," she says, raising her eyebrows at him, but it is at the same time that he whispers, "Sometimes I'm amazed by just how gorgeous you are," and she smiles at him. 

"I still need your help," she says, reaching her hand down to find his, and he nods, helping her pull the zipper down her side. She slips the single strap off her shoulder, and the fabric falls to the floor with a  _ whoosh _ , landing with a soft thump around her feet. 

For a moment — one of the longest of Emma's life, as she stands there in just her black lace underwear — Killian just stares at her, taking her in just as someone would take in a piece of art at a museum. 

Almost too much like that, she tells herself, but almost everything this man does is a marvel to her, and when he whispers, "Absolutely perfect," she can't help but smile down at him, lowering herself into his lap and sliding her lips against his. It starts out slow, but quickly becomes more, with both of Emma's hands tangled in Killian's hair and his roaming her body, never staying in the same place for more than a few moments at a time. When he runs his lips down her neck and along her collarbone, she gets chills reminiscent of those she got earlier when she watched him on stage, and even as he swirls his tongue around her quickly-hardening nipple, latching his mouth to it, she can't stop the words that come tumbling through her lips: 

"Why didn't you tell me? Tell anyone?"  

She feels his movements stop a few moments before he pulls away from her, releasing his mouth from her skin with an almost-comical _pop_. When he leans his head back to rest it against the couch, his eyes are closed, keeping her from reading them for some semblance of his thoughts. 

"I auditioned almost four months ago," he says finally, his words soft, but his eyes are still closed. "We hadn't — Zelena left without warning, just came in and told Ursula one day that she was moving to England and never came back. So auditions started abruptly, as well, and as much as I was sure that I wanted to be with you, we hadn't been together for more than a few weeks, and I didn't — God, this sounds so stupid now that I'm putting it into words — I didn't want you, any of you, to get angry with me for deciding to audition without saying anything. Besides, I didn't think I was actually going to get it, I just wanted to audition to have another one under my belt, and then when Ursula told me that I got it, I didn't know how to tell you. I was going to on my birthday, was all ready to tell everyone, but then I got this stupid idea that it would be funny for you all to learn when I stepped out on the stage and that was what I decided to do." Finally, he opens his eyes, raising his head from the back of the couch to find her gaze, the beginnings of a smile on his face, embarrassment slowly darkening his cheeks. "I almost told you so many times, much more than anyone else, because it's so damn difficult to hide something this exciting from you since I lo—" 

He stops himself, a flash of worry crossing his face, as if he is afraid to utter the words he told her just a few days before but hasn't attempted since. She rests her fingertips against his cheek,trying her best to flood her emotions with the words she is about to tell him. Her heart knows it, fluttering wildly in her chest, but it is not from fear or worry or anxiety — it's because it's true, and she knows it. 

"I love you," she whispers, and the smile that breaks out across his face is the most brilliant sight she has ever seen.  

"Yeah?" he asks, and before she nods, she would have sworn that his smile could not grow any more beautiful, but that's exactly what it does. He surges forward to press his lips against hers, almost forgetting to say it back to her — but he does, not removing his lips from hers as he says it once, twice, and again before swirling his tongue against hers. 

She grinds down against him, still confined in his dress pants, but they do nothing to stop her from being able to feel his length hardening beneath her, even more so when he let's out a low groan at their contact. 

"Right," he mumbles, his lips against her cheek as he wraps his arm tighter around her back, pulling her closer to him. "We should get back to that." 

She nods, his lips now on her neck, and she untangles her hands from his hair to slide them down his chest, breaking the contact between them to unfasten his belt. "Yes, please," she says, quickly working through the layers that keep her from wrapping her fingers around him, and he lets out a soft chuckle. "I want to feel you inside me." When she finds her mark, hot and soft and  _ hard _ in her hand, however, his chuckle turns into another groan. With her knees still straddling his lap, he holds her from falling from the couch while she makes quick work of removing his pants and his boxers — ( _ "Looser for the performance, so I don't feel like I'm being strangled under all those spotlights," he had told her a few days before, standing in the aisle at Target. "I get a new pack for each tour." She laughed, but he did not, a comically serious look on his face for their location. "It used to be every concert, but that got expensive when I made it to a professional orchestra." _ ) —  pushing them down until her hips get in the way, before reaching around her to try and pull them that way. It's a little awkward, but at least she doesn't fall off of him (this time), and when he is finally freed from his pants, she lowers her hips back to meet his, covering him with her warm center but not taking him in yet as she presses her chest against his and finds his lips once more. She slides against him, teasing him — hell, teasing both of them — until she finally lines him up with her entrance, slowly filling herself with him. 

"I love you," she whispers, surprising both of them, and he slowly slides deeper. “ _ Oh, fuck _ .”

“Nothing feels better than being inside you,” he mumbles, stilling the movement of his hips for a moment to allow her to get comfortable. “Hot and wet and —” he sucks in a breath through his teeth as she begins to move above him, his eyes slamming shut and arm tightening around her back. “ _ Fuck _ , just perfect.” 

Leaving one hand wrapped around the back of his neck, she uses the other to brace herself against the back of the couch, warmth already starting to spread from her core. He finds her nipple with his mouth once more, and she is almost wrecked with these two things together — but when he growls, “Touch yourself for me,” never releasing her nipple from his breast, she cannot refuse his demand. 

Moving her hand to his shoulder, she takes the one that was holding her up and cups her breast with it, finding his eyes for a moment before he watches her hand slide down her body, coating her fingers with the wetness from where they are joined before finding that spot that needs her touch. 

He begins to move quicker beneath her, slamming deeper into her as he moves his attention to her other breast, and it only takes a few more thrusts, a few more flicks of her finger against her swollen clit, and she is crying out above him, forgetting for the few moments of her high that there are most likely still people around them outside the room. 

She doesn’t care. She  _ loves  _ him. She’s proud of him. She wants to move in with him. 

_ Holy shit.  _ She completely forgot that she decided earlier she wanted to move in with him. She was so wrapped up in his getting first chair and in wanting to tell him —  _ show  _ him — just how proud she was of him, that she completely forgot. 

This is maybe not the right moment to bring it up. 

She leans down, pressing her lips against the spot just below his ear as she continues to move her hips against him, the aftershocks of her orgasm spasming through her, clenching her muscles tighter around him. 

“I’m so close, Swan,” he groans, which only causes her to speed up her movements, laughing lightly at the waves of pleasure still rolling through her as he continues to slam into her, his hand tightening around her hip — and then he growls, spilling his release within her in a few spastic thrusts before stilling, resting his forehead against hers after pressing a soft kiss on her lips. 

In the silence that fills the room around them, they can both hear the movements of people on the other side of the door, and Killian’s cheeks quickly redden against her wandering fingers. 

“I guess we could have at least waited until we got ho—uh, back to my apartment,” he says, trying to avert his eyes, though it’s a bit difficult with his face touching hers. 

“Maybe I was the one who couldn’t wait to get home,” she says, emphasizing the last word, the one that he tried to avoid moments before. The one they've both been avoiding. It takes him a moment to pick up on it, but when he does, he meets her eyes with his again, the pools of blue filled with wonder. 

But he doesn’t say anything, even though she can tell he is trying to form the right question. 

“I love you,” she says again, surprising herself with how easily the words flow from her lips when it comes to him. “And I want to move in with you, into your apartment since you seem to be a pretty big deal to the Boston Symphony Orchestra.” 

“I love you,” he breathes, also seeming to not get enough of saying it, and slides his lips against hers, but he pulls away before either of them can deepen it. “And as much as I want to celebrate _that_ , we really do need to get decent before someone finds us like this, because then I will no longer be a ‘pretty big deal’ and will instead be kicked out, the laughingstock of Boston who couldn't even keep it in his pants long enough to make it the few blocks home.” 

That is enough to convince her, and she grabs a few tissues from a nearby box to clean herself up before sliding her gown back over her curves and moving to help Killian redress. Once they’ve both fixed themselves as much as possible, his violin back in its case and his prosthetic back in place, he grabs her hand as he closes the door behind them, ignoring the few people who are still moving through the performance hall as he leads them out into the cool Boston air. 

“Let’s go home, my love.” 


End file.
